SC junks Maha govt plea to review order for CBI probe against Param Bir Singh

New Delhi, July 20 The Supreme Court on Wednesday junked a plea by Maharashtra government seeking a review of its order, which transferred to the CBI the investigation in the FIRs against former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh.

A bench of Justices S.K. Kaul and M.M. Sundresh said: "Application seeking permission for an oral hearing is rejected. We have perused the review petition and record of the criminal appeal and are convinced that the order of which review has been sought, does not suffer from any error apparent warranting its reconsideration. Accordingly, the Review petition is dismissed."

On March 24, terming the legal clash between former Mumbai Police Commissioner and former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh as "battle royale", the Supreme Court ordered a CBI probe into all cases lodged against Singh by the Maharashtra Police.

Emphasising that an impartial probe into the matter is required, it clarified that it is not revoking Singh's suspension, and also, if there were any FIRs registered against Singh in the future, then these will also be transferred to the CBI.

A bench of Justices Kaul and Sundresh then said the CBI must hold an impartial probe in all the aspects of the matter and examine whether the allegations in the FIRs have any truth or not. "What is the truth, who is at fault... How does such a scenario come to prevail is something which investigation must get into. CBI must hold an impartial inquiry into all these aspects," it said.

Singh is facing multiple cases of extortion, corruption, and misconduct, and was removed from the post of Mumbai police chief over his alleged mishandling of the Antilia bomb scare case.

The bench passed the order on a plea by Singh against the Bombay High Court judgment passed in September last year, dismissing his plea challenging the two inquiries ordered by the Home Department for allegedly violating service rules and corruption charges, as non-maintainable.

In November, last year, the apex court granted protection from arrest to Singh in criminal cases lodged against him. Singh had claimed that inquiries were initiated against him after he accused Deshmukh of ordering arrested police officer Sachin Vaze to collect money from bars and restaurants to the tune of Rs 100 crore. Singh claimed the Home Department resorted to a witch hunt after he refused to withdraw his letter (written last year) to then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, where he had made corruption allegations.

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